Tuesday, March 10, 2009

Wrapping it up a little early here, as the market is consolidating and I don't see anything setting up in the next 10 minutes.

The good news is this is my first winning day since starting back. The bad news is that I gave away free pips on such an easy day. The first trade really should have been +3 but I held it to +0, wanting to give an obvious go-getter trade maximum leeway. Hint - good trades don't need leeway. Second, and this is where I really screwed up, is entering the 3rd trade prematurely. Apparently, I am so good that I don't need a real trading signal! Yeah that was an expensive 7 pips down the rat hole.

Overall +15 but should have had +25. Disappointing result on such an easy day.

understandable. As a new trader i need to understand how the rest of my life affects my trading and focus. And if there are outside distractions just skip trading until its resolved . I think that and psychology and cutting losses short are the 3 biggies in tradding.

Yes, your mental state is something that is important to keep an eye on. Hard to do in the moment. Especially when trading is the only thing going "right" when these issues crop up.

I think I did an o.k. job of spotting the issue and reducing size and eventually halting my live trading. I am now really aware of the fact that traders suffer emotional drawdowns as well as dollar drawdowns.